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The folded meaning of your words’ deceit.
Against my soul’s pure truth, why labour you
To make it wander in an unknown field?
Are you a god? would you create me new?
Transform me then, and to your power I’ll yield.
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But if that I am I, then well I know
Your weeping sister is no wife of mine,
Nor to her bed no homage do I owe;
Far more, far more to you do I decline;
O, train me not, sweet mermaid, with thy note
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To drown me in thy sister’s flood of tears;
Sing, siren, for thyself, and I will dote;
Spread o’er the silver waves thy golden hairs,
And as a bed I’ll take thee, and there lie,
And in that glorious supposition think
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He gains by death that hath such means to die;
Let love, being light, be drowned if she sink.
LUCIANA What, are you mad that you do reason so?
ANTIPHOLUS S.
Not mad, but mated, how I do not know.
LUCIANA It is a fault that springeth from your eye.
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ANTIPHOLUS S.
For gazing on your beams, fair sun, being by.
LUCIANA
Gaze where you should, and that will clear your
sight.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
As good to wink, sweet love, as look on night.
LUCIANA Why call you me love? Call my sister so.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Thy sister’s sister.
LUCIANA That’s my sister.
ANTIPHOLUS S. No,
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It is thyself, mine own self’s better part,
Mine eye’s clear eye, my dear heart’s dearer heart,
My food, my fortune, and my sweet hope’s aim,
My sole earth’s heaven, and my heaven’s claim.
LUCIANA All this my sister is, or else should be.
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ANTIPHOLUS S. Call thyself sister, sweet, for I am thee;
Thee will I love, and with thee lead my life;
Thou hast no husband yet, nor I no wife –
Give me thy hand.
LUCIANA O, soft, sir, hold you still;
I’ll fetch my sister to get her good will. Exit.
70
Enter DROMIO OF SYRACUSE.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Why, how now Dromio, where run’st
thou so fast?
DROMIO S. Do you know me sir? Am I Dromio? Am I
your man? Am I myself?
ANTIPHOLUS S. Thou art Dromio, thou art my man,
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thou art thyself.
DROMIO S. I am an ass, I am a woman’s man, and besides
myself.
ANTIPHOLUS S. What woman’s man? and how besides
thyself?
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DROMIO S. Marry, sir, besides myself, I am due to a
woman, one that claims me, one that haunts me, one
that will have me.
ANTIPHOLUS S. What claim lays she to thee?
DROMIO S. Marry sir, such claim as you would lay to
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your horse; and she would have me as a beast, not that
I being a beast she would have me, but that she being
a very beastly creature lays claim to me.
ANTIPHOLUS S. What is she?
DROMIO S. A very reverend body; ay, such a one as a
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man may not speak of, without he say ‘sir-reverence’;
I have but lean luck in the match, and yet is she a
wondrous fat marriage.
ANTIPHOLUS S. How dost thou mean, a fat marriage?
DROMIO S. Marry, sir, she’s the kitchen wench, and all
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grease, and I know not what use to put her to but to
make a lamp of her, and run from her by her own light.
I warrant her rags and the tallow in them will burn a
Poland winter; if she lives till doomsday she’ll burn a
week longer than the whole world.
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ANTIPHOLUS S. What complexion is she of?
DROMIO S. Swart like my shoe, but her face nothing like
so clean kept; for why? she sweats, a man may go over-
shoes in the grime of it.
ANTIPHOLUS S. That’s a fault that water will mend.
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DROMIO S. No sir, ’tis in grain; Noah’s flood could not
do it.
ANTIPHOLUS S. What’s her name?
DROMIO S. Nell, sir; but her name and three quarters,
that’s an ell and threequarters, will not measure her
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from hip to hip.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Then she bears some breadth?
DROMIO S. No longer from head to foot than from hip
to hip; she is spherical, like a globe; I could find out
countries in her.
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ANTIPHOLUS S. In what part of her body stands Ireland?
DROMIO S. Marry, sir, in her buttocks; I found it out by
the bogs.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where Scotland?
DROMIO S. I found it by the barrenness, hard in the
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palm of the hand.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where France?
DROMIO S. In her forehead, armed and reverted, making
war against her heir.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where England?
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DROMIO S. I looked for the chalky cliffs, but I could find
no whiteness in them. But I guess it stood in her chin,
by the salt rheum that ran between France and it.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where Spain?
DROMIO S. Faith, I saw it not; but I felt it hot in her
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breath.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where America, the Indies?
DROMIO S. O, sir, upon her nose, all o’er-embellished
with rubies, carbuncles, sapphires, declining their rich
aspect to the hot breath of Spain, who sent whole
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armadoes of carracks to be ballast at her nose.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Where stood Belgia, the Netherlands?
DROMIO S. O, sir, I did not look so low. To conclude, this
drudge or diviner laid claim to me, called me Dromio,
swore I was assured to her, told me what privy marks
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I had about me, as the mark of my shoulder, the mole
in my neck, the great wart on my left arm, that I,
amazed, ran from her as a witch.
And I think if my breast had not been made of faith,
and my heart of steel,
She had transform’d me to a curtal dog, and made
me turn i’th’ wheel.
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ANTIPHOLUS S.
Go, hie thee presently, post to the road;
And if the wind blow any way from shore
I will not harbour in this town to-night.
If any bark put forth, come to the mart,
Where I will walk till thou return to me;
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If everyone knows us and we know none,
’Tis time I think to trudge, pack and be gone.
DROMIO S. As from a bear a man would run for life,
So fly I from her that would be my wife. Exit.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
There’s none but witches do inhabit here,
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And therefore ’tis high time that I were hence;
She that doth call me husband, even my soul
Doth for a wife abhor. But her fair sister,
Possess’d with such a gentle sovereign grace,
Of such enchanting presence and discourse,
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Hath almost made me traitor to myself;
But lest myself be gu
ilty to self-wrong,
I’ll stop mine ears against the mermaid’s song.
Enter ANGELO with the chain.
ANGELO Master Antipholus.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Ay, that’s my name.
ANGELO I know it well, sir; lo, here’s the chain;
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I thought to have ta’en you at the Porpentine,
The chain unfinish’d made me stay thus long.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
What is your will that I shall do with this?
ANGELO
What please yourself, sir; I have made it for you.
ANTIPHOLUS S. Made it for me, sir? I bespoke it not.
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ANGELO
Not once, nor twice, but twenty times you have.
Go home with it, and please your wife withal,
And soon at supper-time I’ll visit you,
And then receive my money for the chain.
ANTIPHOLUS S. I pray you, sir, receive the money now,
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For fear you ne’er see chain nor money more.
ANGELO You are a merry man, sir; fare you well. Exit.
ANTIPHOLUS S.
What I should think of this I cannot tell;
But this I think, there’s no man is so vain
That would refuse so fair an offer’d chain.
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I see a man here needs not live by shifts
When in the streets he meets such golden gifts.
I’ll to the mart, and there for Dromio stay;
If any ship put out, then straight, away. Exit.
4.1 Enter Second Merchant, the goldsmith ANGELO and an Officer.
2 MERCHANT
You know since Pentecost the sum is due,
And since I have not much importun’d you,
Nor now I had not, but that I am bound
To Persia, and want guilders for my voyage;
Therefore make present satisfaction,
5
Or I’ll attach you by this officer.
ANGELO Even just the sum that I do owe to you
Is growing to me by Antipholus,
And in the instant that I met with you
He had of me a chain; at five o’clock
10
I shall receive the money for the same.
Pleaseth you walk with me down to his house,
I will discharge my bond, and thank you too.
Enter ANTIPHOLUS OF EPHESUS and DROMIO from the Courtesan’s.
OFFICER
That labour may you save; see where he comes.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
While I go to the goldsmith’s house, go thou
15
And buy a rope’s end; that will I bestow
Among my wife and her confederates
For locking me out of my doors by day –
But soft, I see the goldsmith; get thee gone,
Buy thou a rope and bring it home to me.
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DROMIO E.
I buy a thousand pound a year, I buy a rope! Exit.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
A man is well holp up that trusts to you;
I promised your presence and the chain,
But neither chain nor goldsmith came to me.
Belike you thought our love would last too long
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If it were chain’d together, and therefore came not.
ANGELO Saving your merry humour, here’s the note
How much your chain weighs to the utmost carrat,
The fineness of the gold, and chargeful fashion,
Which doth amount to three odd ducats more
30
Than I stand debted to this gentleman;
I pray you see him presently discharg’d,
For he is bound to sea and stays but for it.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
I am not furnish’d with the present money;
Besides, I have some business in the town;
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Good signior, take the stranger to my house,
And with you take the chain, and bid my wife
Disburse the sum on the receipt thereof;
Perchance I will be there as soon as you.
ANGELO Then you will bring the chain to her yourself.
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ANTIPHOLUS E.
No, bear it with you, lest I come not time enough.
ANGELO Well sir, I will. Have you the chain about you?
ANTIPHOLUS E.
And if I have not, sir, I hope you have,
Or else you may return without your money.
ANGELO Nay, come, I pray you, sir, give me the chain;
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Both wind and tide stays for this gentleman,
And I, to blame, have held him here too long.
ANTIPHOLUS E.
Good Lord! You use this dalliance to excuse
The Arden Shakespeare Complete Works Page 80